Rating: 
Summary: Marked Black History
Review: This is the most comprehensive MLK book you can get and it helped me through the 20th century as I wrote a short-short on Black history entitled "Who is We?" available @ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/singinsagg. The book spans black history and the agonizing period of slavery from 1441, all across the Americas. It brings you to the period of segregation and tell of the arts that blacks are known for and traces the life of MLK, blacks in film, musical emerges such as gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, reggae, and hip-hop (rap).
Rating: 
Summary: Very good biography on MLK
Review: This Pulitzer Prize winning biography proves to be superbly reseached and well written (although bit dry for some) account of the great civil right leader. However, the book seem to be geared around his public life and his involvment with the Civil Rights movement of SCLC. Although this part of his life seem to be well documented and covered, the book don't tell us much about King's private life, his relationship with his family, or his sexual indiscretions and his own relationship on the personal level with so many of his fellowers, friends and rivials.But its a superb coverage of King's Civil Rights involvement and actually tell a sad story of man who was definitely over reaching the limits of his own personal, mental and physical endurance. A good example would be how MLK's venture in the Vietnam War which definitely overextended his reach when so much still needed to be done on the Civil Rights front. This distraction also cost him friends and allies who could have helped him on that issue which should have been the main focus of MLK. I guess he lost focus in the end. I am bit surprised that the book didn't make any commentary on the legacy of MLK or anything like that. The book stopped with his death which almost sound like a blessing for MLK who seem at the end of his life, an unhappy man, totally stress out and overwhelmed by his burdens. But as biography goes, I thought this book was honest and interesting picture of a man. And thats good in my opinion, MLK was a man with combination of greatness and flaw that the book clearly points out with a great deal of objectivity. I thought it was kind of an ironic statement when the author stated that the only people who really knew MLK were his closest friends and the FBI who wiretapped him. I should note that this may not be an ideal chocie for first time reader of MLK since there are overwhelming amount of material in this book which may create an information overload for some people. My paperback book didn't have any photos which I thought to be bit strange. Book like this need photos. But overall, this is the best biography I have read on MLK regarding his public life. Will there ever be one of his private life??
Rating: 
Summary: Not for those interested in an introduction to MLK
Review: Though this book won the Pulitzer, I was disappointed. I even special ordered it, but found it plodding and incredibly bogged down with detail. For the MLK scholar, it must be old hat. For the rest of us,,,,simply too much.
Rating:
Summary: Not for those interested in an introduction to MLK
Review: Though this book won the Pulitzer, I was disappointed. I even special ordered it, but found it plodding and incredibly bogged down with detail. For the MLK scholar, it must be old hat. For the rest of us,,,,simply too much.
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